


i'd like to check out your card catalogue, if you know what i mean

by weatheredlaw



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: M/M, book clubs are smexy, i ship this i ship it a lot, semi-book porn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-22
Updated: 2012-08-22
Packaged: 2017-11-12 16:41:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/493436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weatheredlaw/pseuds/weatheredlaw
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bruce and Steve are starting a book club -- or they <i>would</i>, if they could stop making out every time they're alone together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i'd like to check out your card catalogue, if you know what i mean

**Author's Note:**

> I was struck by a grand affection for this ship yesterday and tossed together this fic so excuse me if it's like a shitfest or whatever.

The problem is that Bruce really likes kissing people. He likes the swift affection of it, the way lips can be pressed briefly on someone's cheek, or against their temple. He likes the taste of another person's mouth, always new and pleasantly invasive. He likes teeth and tongue and the gentle brush of fingers on thighs and cheeks. He likes devouring kisses, like someone's trying to swallow him whole.

Bruce likes Steve's mouth, and he makes it accidentally-on-purpose abundantly clear all the things he would like to _do_ to that mouth the first time they try to meet for their haphazard book club. Which may or may not of been an excuse fabricated by Bruce to finally be alone in a room with Steve. 

" _You_. Want to make out with _me_?"

Bruce sighs because Steve is occasionally incredibly dense about the rather baser, less purposeful human connections like putting your mouth on someone else's just because you like their mouth. But he looks at Bruce's eyes, calm and honest, and smiles.

Bruce says, "Better," and leans in to kiss him. 

 

 

Bruce tries not to kiss Steve under anymore false pretenses, so they really _do_ start their own sort of book club. He's never in the country for incredibly long bouts, but when he is, he stays in the tower and he and Steve talk about books. Last month was _Lolita_ , which Bruce had suggested as a joke, but Steve had consumed almost ravenously, reading the entire thing in a week. This month it's a rather intense, thick biography of Che Guevara, which Steve had suggested after six hours of hitting "random article" on wikipedia and becoming rather engrossed in the revolutionary's entry. Bruce is not nearly as impressed with the amount done in his short life as Steve is, but it gives him a good excuse to tug the book from Steve's hands and slide into his lap, fingers knotting in his hair.

"How do you even _do_ this?" he mutters, eyeing the way Steve's hair curls over his head almost like a perfect wave. 

"Serum," Steve says, his dry, humorless answer for everything.

"Ha." Bruce kisses him again, and his less noble instincts kick in when he feels his erection pressing against his zipper, feels Steve hardening in turn. "You want--"

No beat. "Yes." Steve claims his mouth again, and Bruce realizes he's been getting so _good_ at this, he must have been practicing. Doesn't matter. Steve palms the bulge in Bruce's jeans, trying to fumble the button open and the zipper down. "You just tell me if I'm doing it wrong. It's been a while."

"Understatement of the century," Bruce tries to say, but it comes out more like a gross, wounded animal noise as Steve reaches in and wraps his hand around Bruce's dick. " _Fuck_ \--"

"Is that all you can manage?"

"What are you expecting?" Bruce pants, rutting and trying to get more friction. "God, just _move_ \--"

"No one wants it slow these day."

Bruce leans forward and _bites_. Steve groans. "You can do me slow next time." He looks up and sees something like lightening in Steve's eyes and grins, tumbling toward orgasm as Steve's hand moves faster over his cock and he comes between the two of them, striping Steve's pressed plaid button down. 

 

 

 _Cannery Row_ is next, because it's Bruce's turn and he has a literary boner for Steinbeck. Steve only half gets it, but he likes the style, the fluidness of description and the rawness of the characters. They're on Bruce's bed and it's the first time Steve initiates the kiss, snatching the book from Bruce's hand and tossing it aside, grabbing his shoulders hard enough to bruise. Bruce pushes him back, straddling his waist and tugging off Steve's thick leather belt. 

"I am going to tie you up and fuck the shit out of you," he says casually. "Later, I think. Next book."

"Maybe a Hemmingway."

"I think Burroughs. Have you read _Naked Lunch_?"

Steve huffs a laugh and his head falls back against the pillow while Bruce manages to get them out of their pants. "That's not about what I think it's about, is it?"

"Unless you were thinking about heroine."

"I wasn't."

"Stop thinking about things. Focus on me."

Steve grins. "Easy."

 

 

"I didn't know you were like this." 

Steve's spread out on the bed like a 40's wet dream and Bruce can't stop licking his lips.

"Like what?" He comes up from between Steve's legs where he's been explaining by demonstration the finer points of rimming, which Steve had not previously respected. "A sex god?"

"Yeah." Steve shifts and Bruce goes back down. "And just...like this. In general."

Bruce lifts his head again, getting annoyed. "I have a shocking amount of self-control."

"I'm aware."

"Are you going to let me rock your world sometime tonight, or am I going to have to just leave you to your own devices?" 

"I just thought you were shy." 

Bruce stops, pulling back and rocking on his heels. Steve looks sheepish. 

"Sorry."

Bruce holds up a hand. "Don't be." He runs it through his hair. "I like you. I want you. It's been a long time since I've gotten what I've wanted. And, you know, you've made it abundantly clear that you like me, too. Unless you're just using me for my book collection."

"I do. I like you. Like this, I mean."

Bruce nods. "I'm not looking to settle down. I'm flying to Bangladesh in two days. You are a national icon of extreme importance. And excellent endowment," he adds. Steve chuckles. "I think we've strayed from the point though. You assumed I was a recluse, which is true, and therefore not very forward."

"That's, uh...that's definitely the opposite of the impression I've recently gathered."

Bruce smiles. "Good." He settles between Steve's thighs again. "I've been alone for a long time. I used to be fun."

"Wish I'd known you then." 

Bruce's expression sours and he shakes his head.

"No. You wouldn't have liked me then."

 

 

Steve doesn't really run background checks, but he does a Google search on Bruce because Google searches are hip and Steve would very much like to be hip. Bruce uses the word. It makes him feel like he's finally impressed him. 

He wades through the gamma reaction files, sees a few photos of Bruce as a much younger man, arms around a soft brunette, standing in a group with several other young faces, all looking to the future, to a more efficient sort of warfare. He gets through all that, then digs up an article, something vague about a kid bringing a bomb to school. "Oh," he says. 

"I was an angry kid," Bruce explains later. Steve accidentally blurted it out five seconds before, while Bruce's mouth was wrapped around his cock and he was actually having a really great time. "My mother was dead. I did a lot of things I shouldn't have done for a while there."

"Is that why I wouldn't have liked you?"

Bruce sighs and rolls onto his back, and Steve knows better than to think he isn't punishing him for all the questions. But he wants to know, because he knows Bruce even less than he knows Natasha -- she's an impenetrable fortress of secrets and Bruce is the one he's fucking. Sort of. 

"You wouldn't have liked me because I thought you were just a really interesting experiment." His voice is low, almost ashamed. "I read the paper work on you and called you a test subject in my writings and referred to your current state as the end product of experimentation. You were not a person to me, because in my mind, I couldn't imagine you as one. You were a skinny kid who became a scientific marvel and I didn't respect that. I actually didn't like you. I thought you were selfish." Bruce looks at him. "Who wouldn't want to get bigger? Be stronger than anyone else, be able to punch Hitler? I didn't think about war because I never cared about war. War was something other people did. I was better than that.

"And now I fight a war every day. Now I meet people who look at me and they think I'm just a really interesting experiment. And I don't know how to stop them. So I don't. Because this is my punishment, for not respecting you, for not respecting war, for not respecting what you stood for.

"You stood for freedom, and I already had all the freedom I could ever want. And now my own body is a prison." 

Steve watches Bruce close his eyes, like he's talked himself to sleep. But he opens them again, looking up at Steve.

"But you don't think that way anymore."

"No. Now I appreciate what a bibliophile you are. Puts things in perspective." Steve laughs and bends down to kiss him, because it's still sort of their favorite thing. Bruce is so good at it, his mouth reverent on Steve's, tongue slow and careful when he wants it to be. Steve pushes harder, moving himself between Bruce's legs. Their cocks brush, and Steve groans, because they haven't done this yet, they haven't been this close. "Hey. _Hey_." Bruce puts a hand on his cheek. "You okay? You want this?" Steve nods, because words, what are they, how are they made? 

Bruce sighs and curls his hands around them both and Steve thrusts, fucking his fist and realizing that this is going to be over so fast, because he's already wired from Bruce's mouth, hot from waiting, turned on just because he is -- and then he's spilling over, coming with a moan and Bruce is talking him through it, voice breaking as he gets closer himself. His hips punch up as he comes and they're such a mess. 

Such a terrible, awful pair of messes they both are. 

"Next book is your pick," Bruce murmurs, dropping a kiss on Steve's shoulder. "Your pick."

 

 

"Are you, like, in love with Bruce?" Clint asks the question in the gym, which is a free and open space where anything may be discussed, no judgments allowed. Steve is feeling awfully judged, so he glances over at Clint and gives him a warning look. "Sorry. I didn't mean it like that. I just meant, like...I didn't realize he was your type."

"I am typeless. I look good with everyone," Steve adds, because it's true. Clint nods, accepting this. "I don't know. I like Bruce. He's comfortable."

"He turns into the _Hulk._ How is that comfortable?"

"That's beside the point. We never talk about that."

"What do you talk about?"

"Books, mostly. Ourselves. How long it'll take Tony to realize we swapped out his coffee for decaf."

"I _knew_ that was you two."

"Bruce's idea."

"He's cruel." 

Steve nods. "In very small, endearing ways."

"Aww you do love 'em."

"Fightin' words, my friend."

"Well, he loves you, that's pretty obvious." Steve snorts. " _What?_ He totally does. Hey pass me a towel." Clint wipes his forehead. "I just think he's super into you. Like, emotionally."

 

 

"Are you into me? Emotionally?"

"Oh my god what are you doing don't _stop_ \--" Bruce's hips buck up in frustration, Steve no longer demonstrating just how much he respects the lost art of rimming and opting instead to ask Bruce _if he's into him._ "What the hell is this about? Why are you--"

"Clint thinks we're in love."

"Clint used to _be in the circus._ Get your mouth down there and finish this--"

"I think we are," Steve drops casually, then goes back. Bruce reaches down and grabs his hair, holds him there as Steve's hand reaches up to jack him off. He comes, _stevestevestevestevefuck_ falling off his tongue. 

"Yeah," he says finally. "Yeah I think I do. Now get on your back because I really want to show you just how _emotionally into you_ I am."

 

 

It isn't fair, Tony decides, that Bruce is the one who woos America's golden boy. "Better you than me," he decides. "I'd have ruined him."

"Tony." Pepper kicks him under the table. "We talked about your self-esteem."

"No, no. That was a comment about how _good at sex_ I am." They bicker for a while longer and Bruce finishes his drink and reading the paper. He looks between them and decides he likes this comfortable space -- this building and these people and this life -- and doesn't get on his plane to a SHIELD outpost in Croatia at seven. He goes to Steve's room instead.

"Can I read to you? Is that weird?" 

Steve looks up from his sketch book on the balcony and smiles. "Yeah. Sure. Well, no. It's not weird. But yeah. Yes."

"God, shut up." Bruce kisses him and goes back in to get his book. 

"I guess Croatia can wait."

"SHIELD offered me a job out there for a few months. I figured it would be more fun to stay here with you. Mooch off of Tony. Hide his phone in the air ducts." 

"That's a new one."

"I know, I thought of it on the way up here." He props his legs in Steve's lap and pushes his glasses up his nose. " _'If you could wait a year,' the old man said at last, 'a year or two is nothing when you’re thirty-five. If you could wait a year, not more than two surely, then I wouldn’t mind.'_ "


End file.
